It is a deplorable exhibition of the weakness of good
men, that the Lutherans and the Calvinists should have wasted their
energies in contending together upon such a point. But we moderns have
no right to boast. Precisely the same spirit is manifested now, and
denominations differ and strive together upon questions which the human
mind can never settle. The spirit which then animated the two parties
may be inferred from the reply of the Lutherans.
"The partisans of Calvin," they wrote, "have accumulated such numberless
errors in regard to the person of Christ, the communication of His
merits and the dignity of human nature; have given such forced
explanations of the Scriptures, and adopted so many blasphemies, that
the question of the Lord's Supper, far from being the principal, has
become the least point of difference. An outward union, merely for
worldly purposes, in which each party is suffered to maintain its
peculiar tenets, can neither be agreeable to God nor useful to the
Church. These considerations induced us to insert into the formulary of
concord a condemnation of the Calvinistical errors; and to declare our
public decision that false principles should not be covered with the
semblance of exterior union, and tolerated under pretense of the right
of private judgment, but that all should submit to the Word of God, as
the only rule to which their faith and instructions should be
conformable.
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